Yahoo Beta: WebMessenger

AOL: AIM Express

While on the road at @d:tech this week, I was going through IM withdrawl. Was at my sister's place and wanted to check if a buddy (Olivier, actually) was online. But I didn't want to download MSN Messenger on my sister's machine (she doesn't use IM) just for one quick chat. Struck me that this was an obvious short-coming in the whole IM revolution — the lack of a machine-independent chat platform. That is, the IM equivalent of Hotmail for email — a web-based interface where you could log into your existing account and have access to your friend's list and normal IM identity for away-from-home chat sessions.

So, I posted a musing about this on my personal blog, and in the comments field Paul Frankenstein pointed out the AOL AIM Express tool linked above (which he said is okay for emergencies but not without technical shortcomings) and someone who goes by Blue Schnauzer pointed out the Yahoo beta tool, both of which were more or less what I had in mind. Ah, bloggers, gotta love 'em. Trouble is, I use MSN Messenger. Now, if only Trillian would jump on this bandwagon, all our troubles would be solved.